Scots language ban? The word 'dreich' must be saved for the nation and the campaign starts here – Aidan Smith

My laptop has a way of checking if, perish the thought, I’ve ever repeated myself in print. My laptop has a way of checking… see? It works.

Succession star Brian Cox looks like he's just been told the word 'dreich' is on a new banned list

So, totting up how many times I’ve used choice words, favourite words, words for which there are no real substitutes, is easy. For instance, the best term for damp and dreary weather is undoubtedly “dreich”. I’m pleased to say it’s turned up in stuff I’ve written at least twice a year over the last couple of decades and indeed am surprised the total isn’t higher.

Sometimes it’s not been my description, sometimes it’s referred to more than just general soddenness outside the window – and sometimes it’s come from the biggest of Scottish stars.

The actor Brian Cox is a proud Dundonian. When we met, pre-Succession, he was lamenting how his home city’s humour struggled to be heard above that of Glasgow and the “dreich oppression” typified by Rab C Nesbitt.

I was pleased when the great Olympian Allan Wells reached for dreich when recalling overhead conditions on the day of his gold-medal homecoming parade along Edinburgh’s Princes Street – and that nearly four decades of living in Surrey hadn’t removed the word from his vocabulary.

The European Cup-winning footballer Des Bremner chose it when recounting an away match in Berlin. In fact, being a Highlander, he called the place “gie dreich”.

The folk musician Phil Cunningham, telling me about his TV history of religious music, categorised the sounds emanating from Scottish churches during one particular era as “reliably dreich”.

I’ve used it in relation to Coatbridge and Cowdenbeath, rugby internationals and Radio 1 roadshows, and most recently when characterising David Tennant’s Phileas Fogg in the recent dramatisation of Around the World in 80 Days. What a brilliant word, I’m sure we can all agree.

Except the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) don’t. They’re urging members not to use Scots words as they might “confuse” people from other parts of the UK or overseas. The directive comes in an “inclusive language guide” which has prompted fears that much-loved terms could be under threat. The vulnerable could also include “drookit”, “glaikit” and “scunnered”.

I’m scunnered by this. Now, ICAS doesn’t represent all of Scotland, just its trusty accountants. You may think the advice is the work of balloons and bawheids and conclude that it’s utter mince.

But guardians of the Scots tongue are concerned; indeed they’re doing their dinger and going radge. “As well as patronising, the guide is also damaging as it discourages the use of the language among people who can understand it perfectly well,” Dr Duncan Sneddon, an expert in Celtic languages at the Church of Scotland, told the Sunday Times.

Language evolves, of course. Words and phrases become archaic; buzzy neologisms take their place. Just before this guide, there was a survey which revealed that sayings such as “a stitch in time saves nine”, “know your onions” and “nail your colours to the mast” were dying out, with large numbers of the 18 to 50-year-olds polled admitting they never used them or indeed didn’t know what they meant.

Inevitably, a lot of the new words and phrases emanate from America. We are now much less likely to say “pip-pip!” – a favourite of PG Wodehouse and another phrase which caused consternation in that survey – than “have a nice day”.

But maybe in Scotland we should start using, as a cheery farewell greeting, “have a dreich day”. You see, dreich in my book has no negative connotations. I like sunshine but I also like it when there’s a giant scabby dog blanket enveloping the entire land – and for the Calcutta Cup on Saturday when England come to Murrayfield, I sincerely hope we give them a dreich welcome.

That’s dreich in the meteorological sense but the word is hugely versatile. You might use it to describe the Scottish condition but, again, not necessarily in a bad way. It’s one of those words we’ve managed to flip on its head and turn into a term of endearment – just like “bugger”. Whenever there’s a row about language – a barney, a stooshie – I turn to my bible: Michael Munro’s The Patter.

Published by Glasgow District Libraries in 1985, it’s billed as a guide to the slang of that city, but much of it is well understood right across the scabby dog blanket. Here you’ll find “stoater”, “stormer” and “brammer”, which would all apply to his lexicography. (Note to accountants hearing them for the first time: they mean the same thing – anything excellent).

Thirty-seven years ago, Munro, in his foreword, was lamenting how the street-talk he recorded and celebrated had been stigmatised as “ignorant corruption of Queen’s English”.

He added: “With the mass media firmly in control of contemporary thought and communication, regional dialects are now more than ever at risk of dilution or total disappearance… I would hope that by recording it in this book some of this particular dialect will at least be ‘fixed’ in print before it too is forgotten in everyday use.”

Worried back then, he hadn’t banked on Americanisation, wokeness and the ICAS’s “inclusivity” which, as far as our stoater, stormer and brammer of a language is concerned, seems more about exclusion.

I repeat, dreich is brilliant. It’s onomatopoeic. No other word sums up dreichness quite like it. No other country does dreichness quite like us.

Brian Cox in Succession is Logan Roy – media mogul, mass communicator. He plays him as a diabolical – but, yes, dreich – Scot who’s already wangled a trip back to Dundee out of the show. Next series, wouldn’t it be great if he got the word into a big banner headline?

The campaign to save it for the nation starts here. Have a dreich day.

A message from the Editor:

Get a year of unlimited access to all of The Scotsman's coverage without the need for a full subscription. Expert analysis of the biggest games, exclusive interviews, live blogs, transfer news and 70 per cent fewer ads on Scotsman.com - all for less than £1 a week. Subscribe to us today